Unreliable probe, miscarriage of justice: Nirbhaya convicts' lawyer approaches ICJ

Three of the four death row convicts in the Nirbhaya gang-rape and murder case on Monday approached the International Court of Justice (ICJ) seeking a stay on the execution alleging miscarriage of justice and terming the investigation in the matter as "flawed" and "unreliable".

The three convicts -- Akshay Singh, Pawan Gupta, and Vinay Sharma -- who approached the principal judicial organ of the United Nations, also sought directions for the case to be listed in an open court for hearing and submissions.

The appeal, filed by Advocate AP Singh, said that the investigation is not only flawed but also unreliable which deserved justice chastisement and warrants rejection.

"Many facts of the investigation that pertain to the recording of dying declaration, recording of statements of witnesses, medical exam, holding of the test identification parade, the matter and method of search and seizure and the procedure of arrest have been seriously doubtful in this case due to international media pressure," it said.

The appeal alleged that there was public, political and media pressure to "falsely implicate" the convicts or to treat them as guinea pigs to save others.

"In essence, the submission is that the whole exercise, namely, investigation and trial has been carried out with the sole purpose for the survival of the prosecuting agency in India, which is a big miscarriage of Justice in India," it added.

This comes as the four convicts in the 2012 case -- Mukesh Singh, Akshay Singh Thakur, Pawan Gupta, and Vinay Sharma -- are scheduled to be hanged at 5:30 am on March 20.

A 23-year-old paramedic student, referred to as Nirbhaya, was brutally gang-raped and assaulted by six men in a moving bus in Delhi on intervening night on December 15-16, 2012 and was thrown out on the road. The victim had succumbed to her injuries at a Singapore hospital on December 29, 2012.

Ram Singh, one of the six accused in the case had allegedly committed suicide in Delhi's Tihar Jail during the course of the trial while a juvenile convict in the case was released from a reformation home after serving a three-year term.